Services / Virtualisation & Data Centres
VMware, designed
and kept current.
vSphere, vCenter, vSAN, VMware Cloud Foundation and Cloud Director: we design them, upgrade them, check their health and help you decide what to do at renewal.
Virtualisation & Data Centres
What we do
Work across the whole VMware lifecycle, from the first design to the decision about whether to stay.
- 01Renewal and exit decisionsCount cores, map what you use, then cost staying on VCF or VVF, hosted VMware, Hyper-V, Proxmox or Nutanix, and Azure or AWS. One written recommendation.
- 02Upgrades and lifecyclevSphere and vCenter upgrades with vLCM images, firmware and driver baselines, rolling host remediation and a rollback plan for each step.
- 03VMware Cloud FoundationSDDC Manager, vSAN and NSX operations: patching, capacity planning, workload domains and certificate renewal.
- 04Cloud Director tenanciesOrganisation VDCs, vApps, edge gateways and catalogues for providers and their tenants, including moving tenants between platforms.
- 05Health checksConfiguration drift, HA and DRS settings, snapshot sprawl, datastore latency, unsupported hardware and expiring certificates, reported in order of risk.
- 06Hyper-V and mixed estatesHyper-V failover clusters and SCVMM alongside or instead of vSphere, with Veeam to move workloads between them.
Technology
Platforms we work with
- vSphere / ESXi
- vCenter
- vLCM
- vSAN
- VMware Cloud Foundation
- NSX
- Cloud Director
- Aria Operations
- PowerCLI
- HCX
- Hyper-V
- SCVMM
- Proxmox VE
- Nutanix AHV
We have run vSphere since 5.1 and VCF in production. Proxmox and Nutanix routes are scoped with a proof of concept on your hardware before we recommend them.
How an engagement runs
Five steps, written down
Every engagement follows the same steps, with written plans and a rollback for each change.
- 01AssessUnderstand your goals, environment and challenges.
- 02ArchitectDesign the right solution for your needs.
- 03MigratePlan and execute with minimal disruption.
- 04OptimiseImprove performance, resilience and cost efficiency.
- 05SupportOngoing expertise to keep you secure and ahead.
Deliverables
What you receive
A cluster is only as good as what it runs on: hosts, cabling, firmware and the storage behind them. We check all of it. Every engagement ends with documents and code you own.
- A design or as-built document for each cluster
- An upgrade runbook with rollback points
- A risk-ordered health report
- PowerCLI scripts for the checks we ran
- A costed renewal recommendation, where asked
Experience
Experience behind it
From the founder’s own project history. Clients are described, not named.
- Cloud Director in productionRan the VMware Cloud Director private cloud of a Cambridge managed service provider with three data centres, including tenant changes, capacity and incident response.
- Lifecycle at scaleMonitored, patched and planned capacity for ESXi hosts, vCenter and VMware Cloud Foundation for a UK payments company.
- Upgrade without dramaTook five ESXi 5.1 hosts to 6.5 with no unplanned downtime, opening up the features the business had been paying for.
FAQ
Questions we hear
What changed with VMware licensing?
VMware is now sold as per-core subscriptions in bundles such as VMware Cloud Foundation and vSphere Foundation. Each CPU counts as at least 16 cores, so hosts with small CPUs pay for cores they do not have.
Should we leave VMware?
Sometimes. If you use vSAN, NSX or Cloud Director heavily, staying is often cheapest once migration risk is priced. If you use plain vSphere, Hyper-V, Proxmox or Nutanix may cost far less. The answer comes from your inventory, not from a vendor.
Can you work alongside our existing provider?
Yes. We often work inside a provider-run estate on behalf of the customer, or for the provider on a specific project.
A clear first step
Start with the VMware Renewal Decision.
Fixed scope, fixed price, agreed before we start. You keep the report whatever you decide.